The United States Copyright Office will, from next month, begin taking opinions from the tech industry and members of the public regarding Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that allows OpenSim grids and other content-sharing sites to take down infringing material and penalize repeat offenders.  The application of the infringementRead More →
The Adult Metaverse community was the fastest-growing this year, reaching 1,255Â members by the end of 2015, followed by OpenSim Virtual, which reached 1,649 members and retained its spot as the top OpenSim-focused community on Google Plus. Four grids made the top-fifteen list growth list: Kitely, OSgrid, DigiWorldz, and the GreatRead More →
OpenSim gained a record-high 10,013 active users in 2015 — more than double the increase of any previous previous year. By comparison, last year, OpenSim’s public grids gained 2,189 active users last year, 3,652 in 2013, 2,652 in 2012, and 2,671 in 2011. OpenSim also gained 80,702 registered users thisRead More →
With winter in full swing, there are a lot of events coming up on the metaverse. Christmas parties, winter festivals, and New Year’s parties are all things to look forward to. So here is a list of some of the upcoming events for you to mark on your calendar. ChristmasRead More →
Dreamland Metaverse outscored the two other major providers in every category in this year’s OpenSim hosting providers survey, while CloudServe, the new kid on the block, scored a close second. Zetamex scored last in four out of five categories. Zetamex also had an ownership change this past year, and hadRead More →
Mozilla, which helped pioneer WebVR last year, is making virtual reality development even easier with this month’s release of A-Frame, a tool that allows developers to create experiences for the desktop, the Oculus Rift, and smartphones with Google Cardboard headsets, Mozilla said in its announcement last week. “WebVR has shippedRead More →
Just in time for the holidays, Exo-Life Virtual World has released a set of IAR inventory export files, to accompany its collection of ten free OAR region export files. The IAR files include three fully-functional in-world calendars featuring Exo–Life‘s staff and residents. There is also an IAR file of women’s dresses, andRead More →
The on-demand Kitely grid passed 10,000 regions this month for the first time, and the Great Canadian Grid hit the 1,000 region mark. They helped boost OpenSim to a new record high of 71,360 standard region equivalents, an increase of 326 regions since last month. Overall, OSgrid, Kitely, the Great Canadian GridRead More →
The Kitely Market saw the first downturn in its listing numbers this month, a result of some housekeeping on the part of management. “We were forced to remove the listings of several merchants who repeatedly failed to follow our product listing guidelines despite our detailed instructions on what needs toRead More →
Frame, a company that can run any software in a cloud-based browser window — for a fee — is taking over Texas-based Bright Canopy, which offers browser-based access for Second Life and OpenSim viewers. Bright Canopy founder Bill Glover has told Hypergrid Business that he has accepted a position fromRead More →
Kitely, OpenSim’s largest commercial grid by land area, announced today that it will switch all multi-region islands to varregion mode. Currently, customers renting these larger islands on the Kitely grid can choose to have them arranged as a simple group of regions, or in Kitely’s version of the megaregion format, which doesRead More →
A new Paris-based grid, Utherworldz, is holding its grand opening today —  the second commercial gaming grid in a row to be hypergrid-enabled. In October, Neon Evolution held its grand opening with a fund raiser for the Susan G. Komen Foundation to fight breast cancer, and a $7 special on region rentals. UnlikeRead More →
Crista Lopes has released a new update of the Diva Distro version of OpenSim, used by many individuals and small groups for private OpenSim deployments and hypergrid-enabled mini-grids, to accompany the recent general release of OpenSim 0.8.2.0. Lopes, also known as Diva Canto in-world, is one of the core developersRead More →
CtrlAltStudio viewer developer David Rowe said he plants to stop work on the viewer, which is the only OpenSim viewer that currently supports the Oculus Rift. Linden Lab has an experimental viewer for the Oculus Rift, but it does not currently work with OpenSim. “I developed CtrlAltStudio viewer as a stop-gapRead More →
At AVATARFest 2015, a virtual festival celebrating life on the hypergrid, HYPEvents.net launched a website that lists events from all over the hypergrid so avatars can find out what is going on right now, and where. The website scrapes the web and parses event info from grid event calendars. The site provides a singleRead More →
OpenSim crossed the 70,000 region milestone this month, with a new land area total of 71,034 standard region equivalents. It also crossed the 34,000 active users mark for the first time. OSgrid, Metropolis and Kitely were the biggest gainers in land area, with 1,272, 305 and 297 regions added, respectively. There are nowRead More →
There are now 6,097 different products listed on the Kitely Market, in 11,847 product variations — 7,189 of which are exportable. Kitely groups items together, so that, say, a red version of a dress and a blue version of the same dress are listed as variations of the same product.Read More →
This Friday, November 13, until Monday, November 16, AvatarFest celebrates the strength and diversity of the hypergrid community. With more than 10 live performances and over 15 exhibits this festival showcases the wide variety of talents from across the hypergrid. For example, “Immersive Edge†is a hypergrid story and adventure game in OpenSim. It is “mergingRead More →
Second Life’s economy has a GDP of around $500 million, CEO Ebbe Altberg told The Next Web. According to Altberg, users cashed out a total in excess of $60 million last year. One user has sold around 300,000 virtual dresses at roughly $4 each. By comparison, in 2009, Second Life reported aRead More →
Virtual Life is now home to a couple of new skill-based games that offer visitors a chance to win real money, grid founder and CEO Keith Sparkman told Hypergrid Business. Froggy Leisure, a gaming company known for its presence in Second Life, and also active on the Avination and YrGrid,Read More →
It’s back to the past for AviWorlds this week, as the grid has moved to turn off hypergrid connectivity and start charging for uploads. By our count, this is the fifth time the grid has turned off hypergrid connectivity after turning it on. The previous time was last winter, notRead More →
They met as text on a digital page. An ocean between them assurance that they could be who they wished they were in their lover’s eyes. Love’s illusions fashioned in ones and zeroes texted across the transatlantic cable. No warning that the god-helmets they experimented with would fuse their consciousnessRead More →
Just in time for the holiday season, four grids are lowering land prices or offering special holiday deals. 3rd Rock Grid A week ago, 3rd Rock Grid program director Zinnia Frenzy contacted Hypergrid Business to let us know that the prices listed in our vendor directory had changed. Instead of $50Read More →
With Halloween slowly encroaching on us like a spooky ghoul, there are parties, hunts and games all over the metaverse for this special and scary season. Here’s a list of more than a dozen events, all just a short hypergrid hop away. 1. OSgrid Halloween Dance The most popular grid on theRead More →
Many grids, especially those with unique or specialized content, struggle with content protection issues. Both closed and open grids have problems with copybotters, while hypergrid-enabled grids also have the additional risk to scripts. Grids with large quantities of unique or high-end content are particularly at risk. So, for example, SecondRead More →
On this day in 2008, Crista Lopes, a professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, sent an email to the OpenSim developers mailing list. “I started working on an extension to OpenSim that makes it work in peer-to-peer mode… I’m really excited to say that this is working!” sheRead More →
3rd Rock Grid is proud to announce the hand-over of its management to the Stichting 3rd Rock Grid Foundation, a not-for-profit corporation registered in the Netherlands. The foundation’s six-member board of unpaid directors, comprised of involved citizens, includes previous owners, together with dedicated volunteers.Read More →
The Army’s Research Laboratory Simulation and Training Technology Center has begun work on a browser-based viewer for OpenSim that uses WebGL, HTML 5 and Javascript technology. “The initial work was done using our MOSES Grid Manager that laid down the interfaces to the Open Simulator needed for this task,” said Douglas Maxwell, the scienceRead More →
The 2015 OpenSimulator Community Conference, scheduled for Saturday, December 5, has been extended into Sunday. “On the second day the OSCC grid will be open,” said Crista Lopes, hypergrid inventor and OpenSim core developer. “There are five breakout areas and the expos, so there’s plenty of room for everyone over aRead More →
AvaCon announced the third annual OpenSimulator Community Conference 2015, to take place virtually on the OpenSimulator Conference Center grid on December 5, 2015. The OpenSimulator Community Conference is an annual conference that focuses on the developer and user community surrounding the OpenSimulator software. Organized as a joint production by Core DevelopersRead More →
The casino-themed YrGrid, also known for its Bitcoin-based currency, announced today that it has opened its doors to the wider metaverse by granting hypergrid access to around forty other virtual worlds. Those grids include 3rd Rock Grid, AviWorlds, DigiWorldz, Dorena’s World, Dreamscape, Great Canadian Grid, Japan Open Grid, Kitely, Littlefield, Lost Paradise,Read More →
The Kitely Merchant Fair starts tomorrow with freebies, events, and more at the Kitely Hypergrid Merchant Fair region on Kitely. Teleport via hypergrid to grid.kitely.com:8002:Kitely Hypergrid Merchant Fair.Read More →
Starting October 9 on the Japan Open Grid, the Planet Treasure Hunt, which is apart of the Bunkasai Festival, begins. The Planet Treasure hunt is a scavenger hunt for solar systems scattered around the school region. The objective is to collect eight planets hidden around the school to win a prize. TheRead More →
It’s been another record-breaking month for OpenSim, with new heights reached in land area, registered users, and active users. OSgrid, Kitely and DigiWorldz were the biggest gainers in land area, with 678, 340 and 255 regions added, respectively. There are now the equivalent of 68,941 standard regions on OpenSim’s 302Read More →
Tangle Grid‘s Halloween Expo opened for business today and will run through November 15. But the grid is still accepting exhibitors. “We are looking for creators that would like to show their creation in this theme or just drop a few items down to give people something to look at,”Read More →
The Las Vegas-themed Neon Grid is having a grand-opening party tonight at 8 p.m. Pacific at the Landing Strip Club on its Welcome Center region. The grid is among the few — possibly, the only– commercial grid that uses PayPal for games and shopping via the PayPal money module. During theRead More →
The OpenSim community has come together for a user-focused event next month, AvatarFest 2015. The event will run from November 13 through 16, with the exhibit and performance submission deadline on November 7. See the AvatarFest calendar for more details. Community members were inspired to hold the event by the factRead More →
A record number of respondents voted for a record number of grids in this year’s sixth annual OpenSim grid survey. A total of 1,006 ballots came in, of which 971 were counted. The rest were duplicates or invalid for other reasons. People rated 52 different grids, of which 22 made itRead More →
The Adult Metaverse community on Google Plus has just crossed the 1,000 member mark. With 135 new members since the start of August, it is the fastest-growing OpenSim-specific community on the platform. DigiWorldz was in second place by growth, with 89 new members bringing it to a total count ofRead More →
The third annual Summer of Arts 2015 virtual arts event begins on September 25. Metropolis Grid hosts this event to give cyber artists an opportunity to display their works to a wide audience. The art displayed ranges from audio-visual installations and theater projects to paintings and cyberart objects. A specialRead More →
Editor’s note: This article was updated on 1/27/2023 to remove dead links and links to malicious sites. InWorldz and Avination — two of OpenSim’s biggest and oldest commercial grids — have just made extremely large code donations to the OpenSim community. OpenSim server code is distributed under the BSD license.Read More →
Today, grids that want to be hypergrid enabled but still allow creators to protect content either have to write custom code — as Kitely did — or filter content based on the current copy, modify and transfer permissions. For example, some grids might allow you to take content to otherRead More →
Bright Canopy, the browser-based streaming access service for Second Life and OpenSim, is coming back on Wednesday after a three-week outage. The service launched at the end of August to great reviews but was hit by a sharp spike in the price of cloud computing services. It was offering users all-you-can-eatRead More →
Tangle Grid’s 2015 Steam Expo has been drawing both local residents and hypergrid visitors, grid owner grid owner Leslie Kling told Hypergrid Business. And each event seems to draw more and more people, she added, as word gets out. The Steam Expo and the Fashion Expo are the most popular sheRead More →
AviWorlds now has a Facebook app that allows people to take pictures in-world and post them to Facebook. Many other grids have Facebook pages, but the only other commercial grids with Facebook apps are Island Oasis, which launched theirs late last year, and Kitely, which has had one since 2011. SecondRead More →
Virtual city recreation project Digital Lisbon, currently a part of the AviWorlds grid, has launched a crowd-funding campaign on IndieGoGo to set up its own, dedicated world. Founder Carlos Loff is looking to raise $2,000, which will cover half a year of hosting and provide money for events and content. LoffRead More →
OpenSim grids saw continued steady growth this month, with total region counts, user numbers, and monthly actives all reaching new record highs. There are now the equivalent of 65,122 standard regions on OpenSim’s 317 active public grids, a new record high. There are also 478,497 registered users and 31,567 active users, anRead More →
Pirate’s Atoll announced today that the grid is moving to DigiWorldz. The Atoll has been a small, hypergrid-enabled standalone minigrid hosted with Oliveira Virtual Lands. Grid owner John Simmons, also known as Strannik Zipper in-world, said that he decided to move the grid to be closer to DigiWorldz’ music scene, to take advantageRead More →
DigiWorldz has announced a referral and affiliate program for residents, bloggers, and anyone else who would like to bring new users to the grid and earn a commission on all future land payments. This is not a one-time payment, grid founder Terry Ford told Hypergrid Business. Whenever a new userRead More →
The Scienceverse Kickstarter, originally scheduled to begin today, has been postponed until September 10. The company plans to build an open source virtual reality platform that supports social interactions and third-party app development. It is built on top of Unreal Engine 4 and promises to be compatible with all majorRead More →